Page 14

14

Jeremiah Blake

A long shadow stretches out from the side gate, morphing and moving, as a big man and a small boy make their way toward me. Ben’s strides are long and purposeful. He takes up an inordinate amount of space. It’s his height. And the width of his shoulders. And the thickness of his thighs. There’s a lot of him. He can’t help it.

It’s been three weeks since he and Luca moved in, so I should be used to what happens in my ribcage when I see him, but I’m not. This sighting is unexpected, which makes it worse.

Ben is holding Luca’s hand as they walk. Ben’s arm is straight, hanging at his side, swinging gently as he moves. Luca’s arm is upstretched, clutching Ben like he’s a climbing gym. Luca gives a little hop, skip, and jump every few paces, kicking his legs into the air on the up-swing of Ben’s arm. He does it partly to keep up with Ben and partly because he’s so excited he can’t keep his feet on the ground.

“Surprise flowers!” he yells every time his feet touch down.

When they reach me, Ben shrugs and says, “I can’t get a lick of sense out of him, but I’ve been led to believe it’s a matter of urgency that we come over to do something with flowers.”

“Surprise flowers!” Luca says again.

I hold up a bag of seeds and shake it in Luca’s line of sight. “I have some wildflowers to plant,” I explain to Ben. “I don’t know which ones are in the bag or which ones will come up, so I plant them and water them and wait for a happy surprise when they bloom.”

“Ah,” says Ben. “Surprise flowers.”

“I told Luca he should check with you if he could come over to help me plant them. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course. Thanks for inviting him. You’ve made his entire week. Possibly his month.”

I crouch at the edge of the flower bed I’ve prepared, and Luca and Ben do the same.

“Have you planted flowers before, Luca?” I ask.

“No, but I planted a bean at school last year. I put it in cotton wool and watered it a lot. It grew these little curly strings, and then it went black and started to stink.”

“Oh dear,” I say. “Well, don’t worry, I remember the same thing happening to me when I planted a bean at school, but I’ve never had any stinky trouble with surprise flowers.”

“Maybe plants prefer growing in dirt to cotton wool,” says Luca.

“Maybe,” I agree. “Now, would you like to help me?” He nods his head rapidly and clenches his hands tightly together in glee. “Okay, I’m going to need you to snip the bag here… Good. That’s perfect… Now pour them all out in my hand so we can pick out the bigger seeds and plant them first because they need to go a little deeper into the ground than the others.”

Luca and Ben take turns picking out a big seed. When they each have one, Ben uses his free hand to rake through the soil with his fingers. His hand is huge, nails short and blunt, and there’s a languidness to his movement that makes it look more like he’s petting an animal than digging through dirt. When he’s happy with the state of the soil, he presses his forefinger into the earth. Gently. Tentatively. Like he’s trying not to hurt or disturb it.

There’s something infinitely seductive about the way he does it, though God only knows there shouldn’t be.

Once the holes have been made, he and Luca take turns dropping seeds in and covering them. Ben speaks softly to Luca the whole time. His words are encouraging and attentive but laced with humor. Under the praise and playful teasing, one thing is constant. Ever present.

Kindness.

Ben is kind to Luca all the time. Every time I’ve seen them interact, an undertone of kindness flows freely from Ben to Luca. He’s gentle all the time too. Gentle and nurturing in a slightly too big, overtly masculine way.

Luca picks through the seeds in my hand like a chicken scratching for food. Ben uses the pads of his forefinger and thumb to carefully isolate the seed he’s aiming for. Once he does, he looks at me and dips his head, breaking eye contact. At first, I think he does so because he’s uncomfortable with being so close to me and having to touch me. It’s not a big deal. Lots of men feel like that around other men. Society all but tells us it’s what’s expected.

That’s not what’s happening here though. It takes me a moment to spot it, but I do. It’s there. A faint trace of humor in silver-blue eyes. A crack in the cloud that covers the moon. A joke. Not a big one, or even a good one. A little one, but one he’s making for me. Warm flesh traces my lifeline, a little too long and a little too hard, tickling me.

It’s a small thing that sets me on fire. It isn’t meant to be significant. It’s supposed to be no more notable than a playful jab at my side or a shoulder butted against mine, but it feels significant to me.

While I burn, Ben presses a finger into the earth again. I watch as he curls the rest of his fingers toward his palm and slowly dips his pointer into the ground. Deep, but not too deep.

He wriggles it just enough to widen the hole.

Don’t do it, I warn myself. Don’t you dare do it. Do not allow yourself to feel envious of dirt.

Fortunately, I’m successful. I am not envious of dirt, and what a relief that is. That would be low, even for me.

Sadly, the only reason I’m not is that I’ve fallen victim to a catastrophic distraction.

I hand Luca the hose and ask him to water the seeds as soon as they’re all planted. He does a thorough job, wetting his shoes, his shorts, the lawn, and all but flooding the flower bed.

When he’s satisfied with his work, he gives Ben a mischievous side-eye. Ben’s looking away and doesn’t see it, or if he does, he doesn’t have time to react. I do see it. I see the impulsive thought whisper in Luca’s ear and take hold. His brows arch up and his tongue pops out with the strength of his intention.

He lifts the hose and sprays Ben in the face before I have time to open my mouth.

“Sorry!” he cries as Ben jerks back in surprise. “I told my hand ‘no,’ but it was too fast. I said, ‘No hand, don’t do it,’ but it was too late because my hand is a hockey hand, and hockey hands are really fast.”

I get the impression Luca’s hands moving at a speed that exceeds his brain is something Ben has plenty of experience dealing with because he sighs and says, “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

Luca doesn’t skip a beat. “If it’s okay, can I do it again? Just one more time.”

His expression is hopeful, sweet, impish, and so damn cute that I’m not surprised when Ben shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and says, “Okay, but only one more time, and make sure you don’t get Jeremiah. He’s wearing nice clothes.”

As I fight the urge to rollick, full-bodied, in the compliment, Ben adjusts his posture, bracing himself and leaning forward slightly as he waits for the spray. Luca raises the hose again and wets his face liberally this time. Ben laughs and shakes his head from side to side, sending water flying in every direction. His hair fans out from the motion. A dark halo for a handsome man.

His eyes are closed. His lashes wet.

I feel woozy.

Luca drops the hose onto the lawn. “Daddy,” he says, cocking his head, “you look like you’re about to go onto the ice.”

Ben’s laughter changes from a loud belly laugh to a distant rumble.

It’s like before, when I knew Luca would spray Ben before he did it. I know what’s going to happen next before it happens. I know it. Maybe I know before Ben knows he’s going to do it. I don’t know how I know, but I know.

Time slows.

Ben looks down.

Rivulets of water run down his face. Down his cheeks and his nose. His lips part, and he raises a big hand lazily and sweeps it down his face.

Forehead to chin.

I sit frozen, unmoving but smiling inanely. Ben is still laughing, and so is Luca. Luca looks around for a worthy target for Ben to spritz in lieu of a goal post. He finds none, but as he turns, Ben balls a fist near Luca’s face and flicks water lightly at him. Luca laughs again. So does Ben.

I make an awful sound. A truly terrible sound. A sound that’s the worst of a whimper and a gurgle rolled together.

I’m still smiling, I think.

I’m definitely still making the sound.

I’m not sure if Ben notices and takes pity on me or if he was always going to do it, but he turns toward me. Shoulder, arm, hand, and then chest and face. Beautiful face.

I am patheticness personified. A gurgling, whimpering mess that smiles like an idiot. I close my eyes and tilt my head back as the first tiny droplets rain down on my face. They land on my skin with a cool splash. I receive them with gratitude. Reverence. I receive them like they’re a blessing. A sanctification. A benediction.

I receive them like that, only a little more stupid.

The cold water shakes something loose in me. Something bad. It springs a leak in the part of my brain that manages impulsivity, rapidly draining my body of any and all ability to control myself. I raise a single shoulder, smiling coyly, and look up at Ben through a deliberate veil of eyelashes.

“Thank you, Captain,” I say in a voice so intensely coquettish my entire spine contracts in horror when I hear it.

Ben’s smile freezes microscopically, and he blinks twice. “You’re welcome,” he says after a pause that’s long enough to give me time to spot the shovel lying on the lawn a few yards from us and make a firm plan to use it to dig a big hole and bury myself as soon as Ben and Luca go home.

Fortunately, Ben recovers quickly. I think most likely due to one of those evolutionary traits humans have developed that causes us to have a mini mental black-out when something is so absurd that we cannot possibly make sense of it, so our brain simply deletes it from our minds.

Thank God for small mercies.

“Wow,” says Ben, pointing to the fence between his house and mine, “look at that, Luca. Those are the scratches Coco and Gabe made. The ones Jeremiah was telling us about the other day.”

Yes, yes, that’s right. I’ve told Ben so much about myself over the past few weeks that he’s on a first-name basis with my aunt’s Great Danes, despite the fact that he’s never met them. Or her.

I’ve told him all about my childhood and how my mom and dad moved out east when I was a freshman in high school, and Aunt Lissa took me in when I didn’t want to change schools, cities, and states. Basically wanting to be part of her family instead of the one I was born into.

He knows Lissa built the guesthouse for me when I dropped out of college for the second time and suggested in passing that I was getting too old to live with my aunt for much longer. He knows that though there’s no real bad blood with my immediate family, I feel closer to Lissa, Ness, and Marcus than anyone else. He knows I love them, and that Marcus is kind of a grump but also a softy, that Ness is a dark horse who hates meeting new people, and he knows that Lissa loves spicy food and antiquing and has nomadic tendencies that see her traveling from spring to fall most years.

“Do you miss them?” he asks.

“The dogs? Oh yeah, they’re the sweetest. Gentle giants, the pair of them, but there’s something to be said for being able to walk on the lawn without fear of stepping on a landmine.”

Ben bobs his head and says, “Yeah, that’s the trouble with big dogs. What about Lissa? Do you miss her?”

“I do. It’s always really quiet for the first few weeks after she leaves.”

“Do you get lonely?”

“I’m not lonely anymore.” Jesus. That was coquettish too. Fortunately, it was much milder than that awful Captain business earlier. This was more of a hint than a full assault. I’m pretty sure it went over Ben’s head, but just in case, I tack on, “You know, because I have Marcus and Vanessa—”

“And you have us.” It’s not a question per se, but the way Luca says it makes it sound like one.

“Yep, he has us,” answers Ben because despite my recent mindboggling lapses in judgment, he is a kind, kind man who doesn’t want people to feel like more of an ass than they already do.

Since Luca watered himself along with the seeds, and it’s a warm day, I connect the sprinkler to the hose so he can play. Ben and I sit on the lawn and watch Luca run from the far end of the yard to the house and back again, stopping midway each time to do his version of a cartwheel over the sprinkler.

Ben talks about drawing curtains and rambles about endless reams of fabric. I do my best to pay attention, but I’m lagging. Usually, I hang on every word he says, storing every utterance that leaves his mouth in a vault for safekeeping, lest I should ever have an urgent need to retrieve information about what kind of ice cream he likes best or what music he listens to.

Pistachio and jazz and rock and the kind of thing you can sing along to in the car, in case you were wondering.

I’m out of it today, catching every second or third word at best, because today, Ben is sitting in the sun, and the way the light hits him is different from the way it hits other people. I’m struggling because today Ben’s hair is wet and he’s pushed it back off his face, and he has a smudge of dirt across his left cheekbone that disappears into his stubble. A smudge that’s currently taking every ounce of my concentration to stop myself from wiping it off for him.

With my tongue.

But mostly, I’m struggling because Ben has kind eyes, a kind voice, and kind hands, and it’s just occurred to me that no matter how much of a problem I have with Adam’s apples, thick thighs, deep voices, and masculinity that’s been pressed through a sieve, those aren’t my main problems.

Kindness is my kryptonite, and this man has it in spades.

Sunlight dances across his face and plays with the shadows cast by his nose and brows. There’s a buoyancy to him today I haven’t seen before. At least, not in real life. I see it all the time on the man who lights up my TV screen every night. His sadness seems a little further away today, and I’m so fucking delusional that I let myself believe it’s because of me. Because he’s here, in my yard with me, and I’m making him happy.

When the implication of that thought takes hold, it sinks in deeply and jolts me out of my stupor.

This isn’t funny. What’s happening here isn’t amusing. It’s serious. This isn’t a lark or a laugh. I’m not being ridiculous in a fun, chaotic that’s what Jelly’s like kind of way. I’m being reckless. Reckless in a real way. A very fucking real way. This isn’t lighthearted. This is how hearts get broken. What I’m doing to myself with Ben Stirling is the first chapter of the oldest story in the book. A long, sad story written by those who’ve loved and lost.

It’s the prequel, the origin story of the brokenhearted.

“How are you feeling about going to the game?” I ask when it occurs to me I’ve been quiet for ages and it’s my turn to talk. The Blackeyes are playing the Vipers in the playoffs next week, and the game is here in Seattle. Ben and Luca have tickets to see it.

“I’m feeling pretty good. I’m ready, I think. It’s time, and Luca is really looking forward to it.”

It’s strange. Ben’s words and the space around him don’t sync when he speaks. He doesn’t usually do this. At least he hasn’t done it to me before—say things that aren’t true because he thinks they’re what he should say. A dark, heavy cloud sails over the moon and opens a void. I sit with Ben in the darkness, still and quiet, not making a sound until the void spits us both out.

“Talking about hockey,” says Ben, “did I tell you I found a club I like for Luca? They have a really good mites program and I’ve enrolled him in a couple of day camps over the summer. It’s going to be neat, right, bud?”

“It’s going to be awesome . Wanna come watch me play, Jelly?”

“Of course he does,” answers Ben for me, eyes glinting with humor. “He’s a huge hockey fan.”

Hmm, funny, cocky, and kind? A killer combination if I’ve ever seen one.

I need to be careful around this man.

“So basically,” I say, “the plan is that I’ll phase myself out of his life gradually. I don’t want to hurt his feelings because he’s like the nicest guy I’ve ever met. And I sure as hell don’t want to have to explain why I’m not going over anymore or anything like that because what can I really say except ‘You’re so goddamn hot and lovely I can’t possibly be around you without humiliating myself, best case, or having my heart irrevocably broken, worst case.’” I take a sip of water to hydrate, but also to give Ness time to digest all that. “So, I’m going to sign up to teach three morning yoga classes per week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I’ll keep going to Ben’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a while to keep things normal. Then, when school starts for Luca, I’ll start booking massage clients on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and voilà. Before you know it, I won’t be going over there. My little crush won’t develop into a serious problem, and all will be well.”

“Seems foolproof,” says Ness.

It’s meant to be reassuring, but it isn’t because we both know damn well I’ve been an incredible fool in the past, and there’s absolutely nothing stopping me from being one in the future.